Campbell Soup Chunky Options Trades

Citi is under 40 as market meanders midday

The market appears to have already entered the dog days of summer with the Dow down less than 15 and the S&P 500 Index at 1315.55, down 1.82. The US Commerce Dept. reported a 7.3% rise in new home sales in April while the FDIC says there are now 888 problem banks in the country, up slightly from a previous quarter. And oil was up and trading at about $99.50 per barrel this morning after Goldman Sachs gave it a bullish review.

And speaking of barrels …

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (NASDAQ: CBRL) is down nearly 10% to 48.05 on fiscal third quarter report that income came in at $15.2 million, or 64 cents a share, below consensus view of 66 cents. CBRL has traded about 2100 options, seven times the average daily volume, What’s Trading reports.

Rising commodity prices have hurt some restaurant and food firms in the quarter but Cracker Barrel reports it lowered general and administrative expenses so impact was minimal. Revenues came in at $582.5 million, up a meager 1% from the same period a year ago. Analysts expected north of $594 million.

Interesting trades today in Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB) after it reported yesterday quarterly profits of 57 cents per share, five cents better than Street estimates. Stock is down 1.5% to 44.94 but option volume is eight times the average daily, according to Trade Alert. An investor sells 10,000 Jun 35 Puts at 35 cents per contract.

Intriguing in CPB is the strikes with the largest open interest are about 18-months out, the CPB Jan 2013 35 Calls with 6700 contracts and CPB Jan 2013 Jan 30 Calls with a little more than 6500. The CPB Jan 2012 40 Calls report an open interest of 5664 contracts.

High Options Volume by Strike

Citigroup (NYSE: C) fallen below 40 to 39.87 after ballyhooed 10-for-1 reverse split sent it to 45 near the start of the month. Most active options is the C Jan 12 4 Puts trading more than 58,000 contracts. The 4s are part of the old Citi options, listed as C1.

The S&P 500 Index (NYSE: SPY) sees 43,479 contracts trade in the SPY Jun 132 Call. It was down .12 to 2.02.